I have 4 discus for more than 1 year now. Tank size 3 feet X 15 inch width X 18 inch high. Sponge filter and a power filter( for an hour or so per day).They are around 5.5 inches and now not growing so I presume this will be teir final size. In order to get them grow faster, I had kept them in BB ttank. However this tank being in my living room, was not looking good. All ub good health.
So decided to convert it it into planted tank and here all wrong started. In order to get this conversion properly, decided to ttake help from LFS. He adviced me to go for river sand. Though I was of opinion that for tank of this size around 35 kg sand would be needed, he said 15 kg would be
sufficient. I agreed (due to cost) but asked himto bring 20 kg.
Yesterday night he started setup. He removed my discus and put it in a bucket with sponge filter on.
Then he washed the sand. But he did not put lot of effort and time. Just couple of rinsing and thats all. He then drained all the reminaing water from tank and did setup UGF 9using pvc pipes) and poured the sand. Sand height is around 1 1/2 inches. in front and around 1 3/4 at back.
Then keeping aplastic on top of sand he started tap to fill the tank. Water became cloudy. He started my poer filter and said it will suck of dirt and water will become clear in 4-6 hours. He will come at today evening to do remaining setup.
Now its more than 16 hrs but water is same. I did 75% water change in morning. Still same. When called him, he said to stop the power filter and let dirt settle down and water will be clear soon.
I have folowing doubts

1) How much time discus can safelt remain in bucket and should I do some water change daily there?
2) Will possible not cleaning sand likely to cause harm to discus?
3) Is sand depth OK for time being ?
4) Is it OK to introduce discus in tank at night( assuming water becmes clear)

I am not a discus expert but your situation sounds like it doesn't need expert help, but it does need urgent help alright ...

1) How much time discus can safelt remain in bucket and should I do some water change daily there?

Depends on the Discus' tenacity towards life but you shoul get them out of there ASAP.

2) Will possible not cleaning sand likely to cause harm to discus?

Cleaning is not as much necessary as is disinfecting. Getting a big aluminium tub and boliling the gravel for 30 mins would be ideal.

3) Is sand depth OK for time being ?

The sand depth is not useful to the fish but it is there for aesthetic purposes so if you like it at that height why not? But for a planted tank it will be rather shallow, not to mention absense of any nutrient layer making it extremely hard to grow most plants. It is fine if you stick to object-rooting plants

4) Is it OK to introduce discus in tank at night( assuming water becmes clear)

It is, but I wonder if it is at all OK to introduce discus to a tank which is about to enter cycling phase.

I'm sorry but I get a bad feeling about your fish' current situation ..

Sorry I just pointed out the problems but I should have said something that tries to resolve them as well.

First of all it sounds like the guy you have engaged does not care much about the welfare of the fish, but that's of peripheral interest right now.

Make sure you have not kept the fish in a *new* bucket because they leach harmful substances that are toxic to fish. Then arrange for a temporary bare-bottom glass tank to house them and do regular water changes -- until cycling of main tank completes. The guy who put you and the fish through this trouble bears the moral responsibility to arrange for this.

If you are really keen on a planted discus tank do things right from the start. Get a good laterite-enriched soil substrate for the bottom 1"-2" (from front to back) and then put 1"-1.5" layer of boiled river gravel on top then follow the usual cycling process with a few blue gouramis. I perosnally suggest you do not do any planting for initial 3 weeks to speed up the cycling process. Do not let your current filter dry up since it probably has a bit of bacteria colony already -- use it in the main tank after ou have laid out the substrate.

There are many insightful posts in the planted tank forum here which should be helpful for you going forward regarding lighting and other things. Good luck.

What type of plants are you trying to grow in this tank.
With less than 2" of substrate, you can go in for stem plants only, or plants above substate like fern, anubias.
Further UGF is never considered good for planted tank.
Also sand is the last thing you should use in UGS, the fine sand particles will go below the grid and clog the UGF
Taking advice form LFS is the worst thing to do.
What is the grain size of your river sand, have you sieved it.
If i were you, I would go in for a complete redo of the tank, before you put your discus in.
Throw out what ever he has put in your tank, put the discus back in tank with filters.
Read planted tank forum, gather more information and then start a planted discus tank.
Take out the UGF, take out all sand, first sieve it, wash it properly, so that the water turns clear.
The depth of substrate shuld be atleast 2-3", for a proper planted tank.

to IAH. Kindly update your profile with your location so that experienced aquarists staying in your area can help you.

I have no experience with discuss. But I can tell you something about your problem. Before that, there are lot of material on similar lines already in this forum, particularly planted aquarium section. Go through them and most of your doubts will be cleared.

As for UGF, its an absolute AVOID for a planted tank as someone said aptly that UGF grows lovely roots, not lovely plants.

If you want to grow rhizome based plants that absorbs nutrients from the water column, you can do it with a thin layer of sand. Some stem plants will do, but may keep floating up if sand layer is thin.

If you absolutely insist on UGF, then know the problems beforehand. Then cover the UGF plates with stocking or fine meshed nylon net or similar material before putting the sand on it (and then it has too be a thick layer of sand and small gravel). Alternatively you can try reverse flow UGF (though I don't know why you would want UGF in the first place!).

And finally a planted tank is not just putting some substrate and putting some plants inside it. You have to follow proper procedures. It is all available right on this forum in details.

Preserve ALL the water that you have transferred from the aquarium to the bucket and do not switch off your power filter. Put the water back into the aquarium and do not WASH the filter with water from outside the aquarium. From your description it seems that you have already taken out the sponge filter, which would be completely dry by now. I hope I am mistaken. If by mistake, you destroy all your bacteria population, your tank will have to cycle afresh.

A word of caution: This is general advice. I do not know what is compatible or good for Discuss. Discuss experts will help you on that. But in future avoid disturbing a settled tank unless you know what you are doing.

River sand can easily be used but needs quite a bit of cleaning. It took 1.5 days for me to prepare sand for my 3footer. Had done this couple of months back and when I setup the tank few days back, it was all clear in 4-5hours. What I found was, the more it is cleaned initially the less headache you will have while setting up the tank.

What I did was took less than quarter of a bucket of sand at a time and wash it with a pressurized hose (houseold pump is good enough). Did it 6-8times for each batch. After this, I sieved it under water to segregate fine sand and coarser ones. You need to do lot more of sieving for good quantity of coarser sand.

That's a relief
Get a 2'nd tank and set it up a planted tank, let it cycle and then intorduce your discus after it has cycled.
For a planted tank you need particles between 2-3 mm.
Simplest way of doing that is to sieve it first through a coarser mesh and then a fine mesh, the particles in between would be 2-3 mm. Wash them thoroughly, till water comes out clear.
use 2" of this as base substrate, top up with substrate of your choice(if you want). put in some waer from your exsisting tank.
put in your filter use , plant the plants. Introduce some fish other than discus for cycling.
After atleast you can start by transferring your fish one by one.

Hi Everyone,
instead of starting a new thread for the same topic i am asking the experts here itself.
i have a tank with the same dimensions and i have african cichlids in it. i am planning to turn it into discuss tank. definitely the idea of a planted discuss tank sounds attractive. here are the issues which i think i have before venturing into a planted discuss tank. please correct me if i am wrong and provide a solution for it.

1. gravel will add up to the grime and poop acccumulation. hence requiring more water change(and not effective water change as well)
2. if i consider putting CO2. if it is DIY it will trouble a lot with the PH hence weakening the discuss.
3. more plants means more cleaning of the base otherwise rotting leaves will provide ideal breeding for bacteria.
4. putting hands more often in water for ctting pruning etc will freak the discuss out.(doubts as someone talked about feeding them with hand).
5. do i need to clean 20% water each day or 50% a week will be fine. i won't put more than 4 fish in my tank.

That is excatly the reason why discus in planted tanks are a rarity.
The plants in discus tank should be mainly rosette, low maintainence, ferns, anubias, echinodorous,vals etc. avoid stem plants (this will take care of frequent pruning).
DIY Co2 cannot be used, presurrised is best, fertilization at minimum.
Growing discus in such tanks would not be easy, semi grown adults might be best.
You cannot feed BHM etc. in these tanks.
In tank of this size I don't think you can have more than 2 discus adults.

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